Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 273 



IN the preceding chapter I have inquired into the population of feve- 

 ral of the countries of this earth, as far as they are known to us. 

 In this chapter I come home, and am to inquire into the population 

 of Britain; — a moft ferious and important fubjeft, defervin^ as much 

 or more than any thing elk, the conlideration of our legiflature and 

 our minirters. Population is, as 1 have already obferved, one of 

 the three great articles of the political fyftem. It is fo particularly 

 in Britain, where, 1 believe, there are more people employed in dif- 

 ferent occupations, on land and by fea, at home and abroad, than 



are, or, 1 am perfuaded, ever were, in any other nation of Jiurope. 



I will begin with England. 



That the numbers in England are not now fo great as they were 

 in the days of Julius Casfar, I think is evident. Cselar reprefents 

 England (the only part of Britain which he faw) as exceedingly 

 populous when he was there. Defcribing the face of the country- 

 he fays, there was in it hifinita bomUiiim multittido ; which, in any- 

 other writer of not fo corrredl and chafte a flile, I fhould think an 

 hyperbolical exprefTion. But, in fuch a writer as Gsefar, it can 

 mean no more than that the country was extraordinarily populous 

 more than even Gaul, from which he was come, and which was cer- 

 tainly a country then much more populous than it is at prefent. 

 Now, no man, who obferves with any attention the appearance of 

 the country of England, will fay that it is infinitdy popuiotts -, for fuch 

 an exprefTion 1 fhould confider as a mofl ridiculous exaggeration. It 

 is true that there are great towns in England; very much greater, and, 

 I am perfuaded, many more of them, than in the days of Julius Cxfar. 

 But do men multiply in great towns as they do in the country? So far 

 from that, it is certain that great towns do not fupport their own 

 numbers. And, as they were originally collected from the country, 

 Vol. V. M m they 



■/\ 



